Thursday, October 15, 2015

Gauguin to Picasso: Masterworks from Switzerland

The Phillips Collection October 10, 2015 - January 10, 2016

Drawn from two major private collections,Gauguin to Picasso: Masterworks from Switzerlandpresents more than 60 celebrated works by 22 leading artists of the
mid-19th and 20th centuries. Friends from Basel, Switzerland, Rudolf
Staechelin (1881–1946) and Karl Im Obersteg (1883–1969) were supporters
of modern art and patrons of the Kunstmuseum Basel, where these
paintings are normally on display.

In areas of Switzerland during the first decades of the 20th century,
the work of artists in France gained tremendous resonance. The exchange
of ideas through the circulation of modern French art exhibitions and
publications to major European cities, along with the travel of artists,
dealers, critics, and collectors, inspired a generation of
independent-minded Swiss patrons. Several cultivated friendships with
artists and dealers, and in major Swiss cities they established
significant collections of French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist
art.

Staechelin and Im Obersteg were part of this collecting spirit. Their
shared admiration for modern Swiss painters such as Ferdinand Hodler
and Cuno Amiet brought about a passion for dramatic color found in the
work of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, Expressionist, and School of
Paris artists. Through dealers, Staechelin assembled a remarkable
selection by Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, and Camille Pissarro. Im
Obersteg’s friendships with artists such as Marc Chagall and Alexej von
Jawlensky led to rare in-depth groupings. Both Staechelin and Im
Obersteg collected paintings by Paul Cézanne, Hodler, and Pablo Picasso.

Selections from their holdings—considered “sister collections”—are
exhibited together for the first time in the United States, including

The exhibition also features Paul Gauguin’s NAFEA faaipoipo (When Will You Marry?) (1892), a major painting from the artist’s first Tahitian stay.The exhibition is co-organized by The Phillips Collection and the
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in collaboration with the Im
Obersteg Foundation and the Rudolf Staechelin Family Trust.